a bunch of group shots from a gathering at the amsterdam cafe on friday night. schlaave, i'm so sorry i didn't tell you the wine was so gross. i was just too shy to say it in front of the waiter. don't worry - you'll still get a free dinner if you finally decide to drag your sorry self to portland... j, i'm so sorry for making you stay up 'til 2am. i hope that cold is gone by now.
on sunday we went wine tasting. we checked out scott paul first (sorry c.n. - we didn't wait for you!). i was surprised - they were only tasting one of their own wines, and the others were french wines. it wasn't very impressive- not what i had expected. we bought a french pommard. we tried to go to lemelson, but it was closed. we finished at carlton winemakers studio, and purchased a few bottles of dominio syrah, lazy river pinot noir, and andrew rich pinot noir. 
the swedes, f & l, arrived at our house friday afternoon. we all went to the hall street grill for happy hour, & enjoyed our old meeting place. f lived in portland 5 years ago and was here for a year working at intel. he had a conference in san francisco earlier this month, and l joined him a week ago after the conference was over. they hung out in san fran for awhile before driving up here. i was busy with teaching stuff saturday, so j followed them around as they explored downtown portland during the day. in the evening, f & l went grocery shopping & cooked us a traditional swedish dinner, with salad, potatoes, and meatballs. they made a cream sauce to go with it, and we enjoyed lingonberry jam with the meat. REALLY delicious!!!
elephants, and elephant ears. saturday was the 45th birthday of "packy" the elephant. this one in the picture on the left is not packy, but some other elephant. j & i both got elephant ears. i had been looking forward to it ever since he told me a few months ago that they sold elephant ears near the elephant exhibit. my parents would've never ever bought one for me when i was little. HA! now i can do whatever i want! i couldn't finish the whole thing. it WAS made without trans fats, but i didn't feel so good after eating it, either. i don't think i need another one in the near future. big fun, though. big fun!
some random pics of those involved. so here's the whole reason we had this shindig - j kept winning things in the raffle held at the boulder jousts (climbing competition parties) held at his local climbing gym. the third joust in a row or so, he won the departed on dvd. so, in order to keep his friends, he promised to have a "the departed" party so everyone could watch it. this was months ago. and it ended up being at c's house instead of ours. c has a much bigger tv than we have. i don't know whose idea it was to combine it with making calzones, or why, but it was awesome. thanks c - it was fun (he's the one in the picture below)! 
here are a couple more pictures which i found on my camera... you can see j's beautiful shiner on the left, with the mimosas we enjoyed. on the right is a picture of some chocolate bunnies from my mom - thanks mom! - had to eat the ears first!!! they were hollow bunnies, so quick eatin'. if they were solid, they'd last for months around here. i think i still have chocolate left from my bridal shower...
at his indoor soccer game on thursday night, j got kicked in the eye by a member of the opposing team. the first picture is from thursday night, and the second is from friday. it's still going through different colors each day. j didn't want to go anywhere big this weekend, so we enjoyed the weather friday night at our local mcmenamins outside for dinner, ran errands & did little tasks at home saturday, and watched a couple movies. we're drinking mimosas now and eating a potato cheesy casserole, and hope to go climbing this afternoon if the weather holds up. happy easter, y'all!
here are a couple pictures from a party on sunday in honor of u, who is on her way to detroit right now, as she won a position in the detroit symphony. 
we left saturday morning at 4:30am from our house to make it to the airport in time for our 6am flight to houston. from there, we had a 4 hour layover before flying to tallahassee. everything went really smoothly, and we picked up our rental car - a jeep commander - at 7:30pm e.s.t, and drove the 1.5 hours to apalachicola. w & b & others were there to greet us, with plates of oysters on the half shell, and dinner. what a great way to be welcomed! j was in oyster heaven. 
here are some pictures from our night at the plantation. the plantation is a gated community on st. george island, and some members of the family rented a house there. it was really beautiful! we had grilled hamburgers, kumquats, and lots of other good stuff, and i realized the next morning that gin & tonics in apalachicola are much too much for me, given that they're made giant-sized!
